280 days of Urbpandemonium #80

[urbpan]

The first time I saw a plume moth (Family Pterophoridae*) I wasn't sure what I was looking at. The oversimplified rule is moths hold their wings down over their bodies, butterflies hold them up above. What is this freak making the letter T with its wings--don't you know nature has rules?! So the plume moths are (as bugguide says) "A distinctive family of moths, but difficult to identify to genus or species." This appears to be genus Geina**, but getting it to species apparently requires dissection.

* I think this means "wing carrier" but it might mean "wing thief," which makes no sense.

** My best guess is that this is someone's surname. No hits on any of my usual references.

Comments

[uneko.livejournal.com]

OFF TO THE INTERNETS I GO! :D

Ptero we've already spoken about, wings are fun :D Phoridae has a page on wiktionary... it's Phora + idae (WHOO! we're making awesome research here, huh?) -idae is from greek's eidos, or appearance... so, y'know, Canidae, bovidae, etc ;)

So now we're left with Phora .. which Wiktionary asks if I meant Phone instead :P HOWEVER! It has some helpful suggestions at the bottom.. things like Ctenophora, and Polyplacophora. :) and THEY suggest that phora is "bearing" or "bearer"

SO! Wing-bearer-appearance for Pterophoridae.. or, well, of the wing bearer family. :)

Bearer and carrier are pretty similar, though at least to ME bearer has more the image of one holding with intent to make use: a shield bearer, versus some guy holding a shield... and... that makes a bit of sense to me: after all, he's holding his wings in a VERY odd way!

What a COOL looking moth! :D never seen it before!

(oh as a thought for 'wing thief' he TOTALLY stole his wings from a dragonfly or something ;)

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

maybe it means someone stole it's wings?